Aspects of the present disclosure relate generally to wireless communication systems, and more particularly, to assisting a device avoid the loss of functionality during long blocking operations on a Universal Integrated Circuit Card (UICC).
Wireless communication networks are widely deployed to provide various communication services such as telephony, video, data, messaging, broadcasts, and so on. Such networks, which are usually multiple access networks, support communications for multiple users by sharing the available network resources. One example of such a network is the UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network (UTRAN). The UTRAN is the radio access network (RAN) defined as a part of the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), a third generation (3G) mobile phone technology supported by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). The UMTS, which is the successor to Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) technologies, currently supports various air interface standards, such as Wideband-Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA), Time Division-Code Division Multiple Access (TD-CDMA), and Time Division-Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access (TD-SCDMA). The UMTS also supports enhanced 3G data communications protocols, such as High Speed Packet Access (HSPA), which provides higher data transfer speeds and capacity to associated UMTS networks.
Currently, a user equipment (UE) may use a UICC to enable various functionalities within an access network. In addition to telecommunication functionalities, the UICC can include applications and/or information used for other purposes, such as mobile payments, banking, transportation and so on. In some cases, the UICC may perform operations that have a relatively long time period before completion (e.g., potentially longer than a minute), such as the generation of public keys or installation of an applet. Further, the UE may be required to wait for access to the UICC when the UICC continuously sends NULL procedure bytes to the UE. Such NULL procedure bytes may be sent while a UICC operation is ongoing and until the UICC operation is complete. During this waiting period, the UE may not be able to send other commands to the UICC. As such, other operations on the UE which may need to contact the UICC, such as network authentication functions, call control procedures (required to establish a call) and others, may be blocked from accessing the UICC applications and/or information. This blocking during the waiting period may severely affect the user experience and may also violate regional regulations.
Thus, improved apparatus and methods to assist a device avoid the loss of functionality during long blocking operations with a UICC may be desired.